Gobs and gobs of lobbyists' cash are about to go down the drain as the now stalled Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) could be postponed "indefinitely". What's more, Barack Obama's (D) cabinet hinted that the President could veto the two pending House's bills out of concern that the bills Orwellian takedown provisions could damage the legitimate internet economy. This essentially means that SOPA and PIPA in their present forms are shelved till a consensus can emerge on them, which is nowhere in sight, as the juggernaut of public and institutional outrage has rolled over PR of several of the bills' previous proponents and endorsers.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, one of the architects of these two works of literature today posted a statement in response to the Senate decision to what he calls a postponment of the two bills. SOPA and PIPA have been widely criticized by everyone from large corporations such as Google and Microsoft, to the Human Rights Watch. The bills are criticized to be too broad scoped to tackle piracy and IP theft, and could be misused for corporate censorship.

Funny that press releases are now saying that Obama would veto it. He originally threatened to veto it because there was not enough power in it; now they say he would veto it because there is too much???? sounds like our one and only Obama for you.

OT: I'm glad that these things are stalled. They'll be back for sure, but at least the interwebz can breathe a small sigh of relief for the time being.

i do hope so, well all end up way worse off if nobody stops this capitalist shenanigins

i thought it a great advert to the common man about the power and danger lobyists pose, it(lobying) if anything is what should be outlawed, why should big business get the opportunities the common man has no chance of.

We won the battle, not the war. If Congress manages to pass PIPA or SOPA, Obama will likely veto and there isn't enough votes to override that veto. Even so, more bills are bound to be proposed. The MPAA has billions of dollars to spend on lobbying and there's plenty of politicians on Capital Hill all too willing to take their money. The only permanent solution is to get everyone that attacks the 1st amendment out of office.

They will just change the name and tact it on to a bill everyone loves. It will get passed. Thats how they got the 1022 passed in the NDAA. Said families of soldiers would starve without new funding then they added the 1022 on the back end. The name "SOPA" may be dead but ITS SOUL STILL BURNS!

The only way to keep this down is to keep fighting it, because these rich and powerful lobbyists will never stop.

Click to expand...

You can kick and scream all you want. Its gonna pass eventually. They will attach it to some social program or something so if you bitch about it you look like a bad person. Again NDAA is a prime example. Do you wanna be the guy who says military families don't get their checks this month while mommy or daddy are off to war? No you sign it like a BOSS.

This is politics. You not being in Washington have NO SAY.

The fact Anonymous attacked the DOJ gave them an EPIC excuse to take away more liberties. Cannot wait to see what they do about that.

When you act like a child you cannot be mad when you are treated like a child.

Click to expand...

when you act like a child you cannot be mad when a pedophile comes after you?

ok - i agree. but my point still stands imo - and that is that there are always reasons to limit freedom and curtail liberty. if it wasn't anonymous it'd catchy hacker group #534 - but just because an excuse exists doesn't justify the action. what WOULD make us an honorable people would be to solve these problems WITHOUT taking such tyrannical measures.

They will just change the name and tact it on to a bill everyone loves. It will get passed. Thats how they got the 1022 passed in the NDAA. Said families of soldiers would starve without new funding then they added the 1022 on the back end. The name "SOPA" may be dead but ITS SOUL STILL BURNS!

We live in a Republic that responds to the democratic process. Democratic process demands we do not elect the people that support censorship of any kind. It's like smoking pot to protest pot being illegal--you're giving them a reason to tighten the laws. You have to play their game (politics) and win. It's easier than you think--just look at what was already accomplished.

Again, the true test is going to be what TheMailMain pointed out: tying SOPA/PIPA to some other bill. If the politicians aren't 100% against it, they'll pass it attached to something else.

We live in a Republic that responds to the democratic process. Democratic process demands we do not elect the people that support censorship of any kind. It's like smoking pot to protest pot being illegal--you're giving them a reason to tighten the laws. You have to play their game (politics) and win. It's easier than you think--just look at what was already accomplished.

Again, the true test is going to be what TheMailMain pointed out: tying SOPA/PIPA to some other bill. If the politicians aren't 100% against it, they'll pass it attached to something else.

Click to expand...

To much money has paid for SOPA. If those people want election money they WILL PASS it somehow. Maybe not under the SOPA name but it will be passed.

Again big companies are mad at the amount of theft online. They used their vast money to lobby law makers to stop it somehow. SOPA was the first of MANY laws you will see.

Who's to blame? The people who gave big companies a reason to mobilize. The free for all couldn't last forever. When you take advantage of something that doesn't belong to you it gets taken away. Sorry kids but you brought this on yourself. No free masons or illuminati made you download the latest Justin Bieber album. You did that all by yourselves. Now we all suffer.

Who's to blame? The people who gave big companies a reason to mobilize.

Click to expand...

pirates are wrong, we get that mailman, thank you. but how are the people that are actually TRYING to erase our freedoms at least not partly to blame? as i said before, whatever reason they have isn't good enough - what they are doing is still wrong and so i see them as holding a fair amount of blame as well.

how you fight shows a lot about your character. if we as a country simply lock down freedoms in exchange for money, that to me says a lot more about the people behind the action than it says about the measly pirates they used as an excuse.

pirates are wrong, we get that mailman, thank you. but how are the people that are actually TRYING to erase our freedoms at least not partly to blame? as i said before, whatever reason they have isn't good enough - what they are doing is still wrong and so i see them as holding a fair amount of blame as well.

how you fight shows a lot about your character. if we as a country simply lock down freedoms in exchange for money, that to me says a lot more about the people behind the action than it says about the measly pirates they used as an excuse.

Click to expand...

In communism they give you poison. In a democracy you choose your poison.

We the people have picked these people generation after generation. We deserve what we get.